Shiny bedspreads became popular in the late 1990s. Note the sage green accent wall.

White on white décor in this 1990s bedroom.

Great rooms became such a popular design element in 1990s homes, but their size required large furniture. Huge sectional couches helped fill the space.

Back to the Southwest décor in this bedroom. Note the heavy wood armoire, which was found in nearly every Phoenix home in the 1990s. These armoires would eventually become functionally obsolete by the mid 2000s as Phoenicians traded in their analog TV sets for flat screen TVs. Nowadays, you can’t give these armoires away.

Coming Up: What will interior design and home décor look like in the 2000s?

Blue clay tile showed up in small pockets around the Phoenix metropolitan area in the 1990s, mostly at condominiums. This is a 1994 Tempe, Arizona condo.

Asphalt shingles were still used by homebuilders in the 1990s. Here’s a Phoenix home with a double cross gable roof design.

The 2000s – Roofs:

Roof design finally became exciting (for roofing, that is) in the 2000s. Certainly more complex in design than just A-frame trusses and a plywood base. Hip style roofs replaced gable style roofs in the 2000s. Hip style roofs have four sides that slant toward the middle of the house; gable style roofs are two sides (like a tent) with vertical sides. Here’s a modified hip style roof from the 2000s with clay tile.

Clay tile was the most common roof material on new homes built in the 2000s. Red tile or pink tile from the 1980s and 1990s was pushed aside for grays and tans and browns. Here’s another hip style roof.

This Phoenix home’s roof has at least seven different design elements on its roof.

Clay tile is usually arched. But in the 2000s, flat clay tile gained favor with many homeowners. Flat tiles were made of clay or concrete.

Homebuilders in the 2000s opted for tile roofs on their new homes. However, owners of homes from the 1950s to 1990s with asphalt shingles began using dimensional asphalt shingles in the 2000s when replacing their roofs. Dimensional shingles are supposed to last 30 years and 40 years versus 15-20 for asphalt shingles. However, the life expectancy of dimensional shingles is 25 years and of asphalt shingles is 12-16 years in Phoenix due to the intense sun and heat.

Homes in the 1990s and 2000s in Phoenix underwent changes in parking design: garages increased in size, garages were used for other reasons beyond protecting cars, and garages became part of the architecture.

The 1990s – Parking:

The standard 2-car garage in Phoenix homes continued in the 1990s. And garages continued to dominate the overall architecture of the home: they were the first and often the only thing you saw upon arrival.

Since lot sizes were smaller in the 1990s, driveways were sometimes sacrificed.

Homeowners began to demand more storage space in their homes, so homebuilders took action. Three-car garages emerged in the 1990s and became standard in Phoenix by the late 1990s. Most Phoenicians then used the third parking bay for storage.

In a few neighborhoods with the smallest of lots, a shared driveway to 3, 4, 5, or 6 homes was created. Homeowners’ Association rules prohibited anyone from parking on the driveway so that all neighbors could enter/exit their driveways easily.

The 2000s – Parking:

A problem emerged in the 1990s with parking: vehicles were getting larger and longer. The standard 18-foot-deep garage was not deep enough or tall enough for SUVs and trucks. So in the 2000s, many cities in the Phoenix metropolitan area changed the building code to require 21-foot-deep garages. Problem solved.

Also, front-loaded garages disappeared from many 2000s homes. The garage was not the dominant feature at the curb. Homes stretched from left to right rather than front to back.

Three-car garages were standard in most Phoenix homes in the 2000s. Homeowners wanted the third parking bay for storage.

Sometimes the 3-car garage was broken up into a two-car garage and a separate one-car garage. The one-car garage could be used for boats, ATVs, ski jets, storage, or for a regular car.

As interest rates dropped and home financing became looser in the mid-2000s, builders threw in all the extras they could and buyers responded. Four-car garages became very desirable in the 2000s.

By the mid-2000s, garages and garage doors underwent a design change: they became part of the architecture of the house. Designer garage doors appeared as seen at this 2007 Phoenix home.

Designer garage doors and custom driveway at a luxury home in Scottsdale.

As mentioned in an earlier post on 1990s exterior architecture, new home construction was fast and furious in the 1990s, and home lots shrunk in size. That meant there was not much room for landscaping for these Phoenix homes.

It is difficult to get excited about 1990s landscaping when there is only room for one tree and two bushes out front. Homebuilders offered free landscaping packages for front yards. Homeowners had the choice of either a mesquite tree, a ficus tree, or queen palms. For bushes, they got pink oleander, natal plum, yellow lantana, and/or red yucca. Maybe a patch of grass out front, but mostly it was gravel rock with the color choices of tan, tan, or tan. Landscape design was minimalist in the 1990s.

The typical 1990s Phoenix home had a mesquite tree out front. The purple flowering shrub is a Texas sage bush, which was popular in 1990s landscaping.

Another Phoenix home with a mesquite tree. There’s a red yucca (aka hesperaloe) to the left of the tree.

Swimming pools at Phoenix homes in the 1990s had more variety of styles than pools from the 1980s. Two defining styles of the 1990s were spools and lagoon pools.

A spool is a spa and pool combination. Sometimes it’s simply a very small pool.

Another spool from a 1990s Phoenix home.

Lagoon pools were for those homeowners with unlimited budgets. Piles of fake or real boulders with running water created an oasis in the desert. Queen palms and pygmy palms were oftentimes used as landscaping around these pools.

Extra money was spent on this swimming pool with its flagstone wading area and swim up bar area.

A common design in the 1990s was the kidney shaped pool with one side raised up (usually with blue tile). As act to prevent drownings, pool safety laws were passed in the 1990s, requiring fences or barriers or other safety measures around new pools.

This is a 1990 Scottsdale pool with the raised side and blue tile.

Free form shapes were very common in 1990s pools.

Red brick accents along the rim of the pools was trendy, as was a raised spa next to the pool.

As new home construction took off and lot sizes decreased in the 1990s, there wasn’t too much room left over for pools. Back yards were sacrificed for pool space.

Window design in the 1990s in Phoenix was cookie-cutter due to the frenzied pace of construction. No innovative designs emerged in the 1990s. However, dual-pane windows became standard.

Since eaves were usually minimal or absent in these homes, most 1990s windows were covered up by sun screens.

Here’s a 1993 Phoenix home with sun screens. The protruding window was a common architectural design in the 1990s.

Extra styrofoam and stucco create a pop-out effect around windows, shown at this 1997 Phoenix home, again with sun screens.

In the 1980s, windows had black plastic or metal strips across a single pane to create a multi-pane look. In the 1990s, the color switched to white, as seen in this 1990 Phoenix home.

As far as window coverings go, fabric curtains from the 1950s to the 1980s were shown the door. In the 1990s, it was all about the 3/4″ plastic or metal mini-blind. And mostly white. On a rare occasion, a valance (very 1980s) was hung to add color.

More mini-blinds, this time with a paper covering in an accordion pattern.

Plastic wood blinds showed up in the 1990s too.

Sometimes the blinds were made of oak.

Vertical blinds with a fabric finish were a leftover design from the 1980s.

But most vertical blinds in the 1990s were plastic.

Coming Up: Will windows in the 2000s copy the 1990s or go back to another decade for inspiration?

Fireplaces in Phoenix, Arizona had different purposes over the decades. In the 1950s, they were for warmth. In the 1960s, for design. In the 1970s, for dominance (they took over the room). In the 1980s, for conversation & gathering.

By the 1990s, Phoenix fireplaces became the forgotten stepchild. If someone wanted a fireplace, fine, they got one, but it was small, camouflaged, or put in a corner.